Android and Facebook : Teaming Up?

What is the “one real threat to Google”? If you answered Facebook, well, you probably already know my opinion. Still, there’s no denying that Facebook and Google are two of the biggest giants in the field, and their business plans, while not directly competing, aren’t exactly friendly to each other. Now, however, it seems that Facebook and Google are joining forces — at least for one project.

According to a post over at the Android community, that project is the “INQ Cloud Touch,” a device that would qualify as the “first Facebook smartphone.” It should be noted, of course, that Facebook already plays a major role in every one of the major smartphone operating systems, with many built-in features already present on Apple, Android, and WP7 devices. Considering that this includes everything from automatically synchronizing your contact data with Facebook to adding pictures to allowing instant posting and even chats, we’re given room to pause and wonder what exactly a phone with “Facebook built into its core” could add.

The details are present on this subject, although somewhat vague. First, it’s supposed to make messaging “faster and smarter” (no details on how). Additionally, “The homescreen features multiple entry points to different Facebook functions,” says the post describing the phone. It goes on to talk about a widget that displays the Facebook stream. What the shift seems to be is that the shortcuts normally found on the Facebook app homescreen can now be found directly on the UI (while the widget mentioned actually already exists). It seems like a lot of push for a phone that will only have a few shortcuts beyond what we have already, so you have to wonder if this big Google/Facebook project won’t have at least a few additional tricks up its sleeve.